


You Can't Imagine How I Hate This

by auntieshakespeare



Series: The lovers, the dreamers, and me [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Chronic Illness, Fear of Death, High School, M/M, Panic Attacks, Why Did I Write This?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-23 19:33:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17086397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auntieshakespeare/pseuds/auntieshakespeare
Summary: At 14 Takashi Shirogane is already used to the idea that he's living with a looming deadline, but it doesn't make it any easier.(Or, side effects of medication may include: hair thinning or loss, a suffocating fear of running out of time, and panic attacks)





	You Can't Imagine How I Hate This

**Author's Note:**

> Season 8 was...certainly something. Glad we all agree it doesn't count as canon. In the light of...whatever the hell that was, have some pre-canon Shiro feels.
> 
> This is set in Minnowlet and my Voltron AU where most things happened more or less the same, but way fewer people died. It can be read without context of our universe which we should probably write about on AO3 but...yanno. We haven't.
> 
> Title from "Graceless" by The National

There's no good age to fall ill, but today youth feels especially cruel.

Steadily working his way through his morning routine, Takashi brushes a wayward lock of hair into place and notices for the first time how thin it looks. He starts combing through the dark tresses with his fingers and a hollow gnawing chews its way through his gut as he sees pale patches of skin where the hair has grown so fine there may as well be none at all.

Buried in his hair, his hand begins to tremble. For once his medical bracelet dispenses no medication. His body is collapsing before his own eyes, but in this singular instance he's shaking purely out of fear.

"No no no." His hands shoot out to the edge of the bathroom sink to steady himself as his heart begins to thump uncontrollably. Distantly he thinks _It's just hair, why should it matter so much?_ but of course it matters. Even with his bracelet, a scientific marvel that his doctor tentatively estimated had added perhaps a decade to his life, Takashi was still living on borrowed time.

The thudding in his chest grew faster, harder and he began to gasp. There was nothing, no air, no reason, no hope. He was a dying boy in a cramped bathroom and his father was going to come home from work and find him dead on the floor, heart splattered across the mirror and walls in the most violent protest. 

_Rotten inside and out, it's why Mom left, why Father doesn't come home anymore. Dying dying dead and you deserve it._

Another futile gasp, knees hit the floor. Death and decay fill his nose, his mind. Everything is narrowed down to sensations--dimming light, tight chest, rust in his mouth, in his nose, cold tiles, and shouting? Who is--

_Takashi? Takashi. Takashi!_

Warmth. 

His face is tilted upwards, cradled in soft hands and when his eyes finally focus it is Adam's worried face that looks down at him. Adam is radiant in the glow of lights, the soft yellow bringing out the warm undertones in his brown skin. Takashi doesn't want to die, but it's easier with Adam here. Something wet slides down his nose, over his lips and he realizes that it's blood. 

"Takashi," Adam's voice washes over him and he locks onto it, a drowning man with a second chance, "I'm gonna touch you, okay? You're having a panic attack. We're gonna work through it."

Adam kneels down in front of him, places one hand on his own heart and one hand on Takashi's. 

"I'm giving you my energy, okay. You feel like you're dying? But you're not. I'm taking the energy from my body and sending it through me to you. Just concentrate on my hand, feel it rise and fall with your chest. That's all you need to do. I'm doing all the work. You are doing so well, Takashi."

Slowly, so damn slowly oxygen starts to seep back into his lungs. His heart pounds still, but it's slowing, it's slowing and he's alive. Adam is touching him and he is alive, they are both alive. When the last of the heaving has stopped Adam drops his hands from their chests. His brown eyes peer into Takashi's own, assessing before he pushes up his glasses and sighs.

"Let's get you cleaned up."

"I can do it." Takashi's voice is small, scratchy, but it makes Adam smile.

"I'm aware of your many capabilities. But I like taking care of you and you're a hot mess right now. Plus we've already missed the bus, might as well have a good excuse to give to my mother about why we're so late before she drives us to school." Adam is grinning and Takashi shivers, warmth pooling in the same place nausea dwelled only minutes before. 

"Hannah won't be mad. She's late for everything anyway."

Adam stands, brushes some small detritus off the neatly pressed lines of his school pants, and then reaches to help Takashi stand too, enveloping cold hands with his warmer ones. "Hannah is with a client. Deborah's off today."

"We better have a good excuse then."

Adam's mothers are Takashi's favorite people on earth, alongside Adam, Dr. Kittleson, and Michio Kaku. That said, Deborah is rarely so indulgent in their mischief and mishaps. 

He shivers, still shaken from the panic attack and Adam squeezes his hands, reminding him that he's safe. He doesn't feel it, even connected as he is to his best friend. He's suffocated by the walls of this bathroom and lost in the vast emptiness of his house. He drops his gaze to the sink where a small spatter of crimson blood lies in stark contrast to the white porcelain beneath. 

"You just take care of that nosebleed, I'll clean the sink, okay?" Adam's voice cuts through the panic attempting to bubble it's way up again. Their eyes meet and Adam has an eyebrow cocked in expectation, but his gaze is soft. Takashi is so lucky to know this boy.

He sighs, nose beginning to ache as the adrenaline works its way out of his system. He must have hit his face on the sink when he collapsed. He rubs the bridge of his nose, sighs again, louder now. Adam releases his other hand, starts to move away and the pauses.

Takashi watches him in confusion. Emotions play over Adam's face as he sifts through things he clearly wants to say, but isn't. His cheeks darken and he bites his lip before closing his eyes, dark lashes fanning across his cheeks. 

He steps forward, taking Takashi's face into his hand, right palm cupping his cheek. His left draws up slowly, wiping drying blood from beneath his nose. Adam has never looked at him with pity, but this soft, hurt gaze is walking a line that he can't define and makes his battered heart thump out of beat. 

"I'm glad I could be here," he murmurs, thumb grazing over Takashi's lip. He opens his mouth to respond, but nothing comes out and the air between them is so full of promise anyway it doesn't matter.

_I'm glad I could be here. I always will be, if you want._

It's nothing to close the gap between them. The kiss is soft, almost unbearably gentle, just a light, wet press and a shaky gasp. The last of the lingering cold leaves his body as a blood-warmth floods through his muscles, lighting along his tender spots and kissing them with all the tenderness that Adam's showing his mouth.

The kiss slows until it morphs into a moment shared, faces brushing and lips too, though accidental. They stand hip to hip in this tiny space sharing air and dwindling time, Takashi's face held in Adam's hands. Everything rests in warmth, yellow lights and gentle hands.

The moment is shattered by the beeping of his medical bracelet. It beeps twice, tightening and vibrating gently as it dispenses medication directly into his bloodstream. He receives two doses a day which means--

"We're late for school."

Laughing at Adam's tone, Takashi pulls away, dropping his hand down to the sink to steady himself. "Go call Deborah for a ride and I'll clean myself up real quick." 

Adam nods, face serious in the face of Deborah's coming frustration. "Take your time." He pauses at the door, shooting a look over his shoulder, "You could use a little chapstick, Takashi."

He watches Adam walk away and it's as if all the warmth leaves with him. Alone in the claustrophobic bathroom, Takashi's happiness leaks out of the thousand tiny cracks in his facade that have developed since he started high school last month. All the golden heat that swirled up into his heart when Adam took his hand has frozen over, sharp and stinging in his chest.

He lifts his hand from the sink's edge. It's streaked with blood, drying rust brown and tacky in his palm. Glancing up into the mirror Takashi takes in his face, pale and gaunt, nose crusted over with blood. He looks like a ghost, something tragic and vengeful like Bloody Mary. He looks like a dead boy. His bracelet beeps again, medication successfully administered.

His hands begin to shake.

**Author's Note:**

> Minnowlet I swear to god I'm gonna write you happy smut someday. Apparently I just have to work through my Shiro angst first.


End file.
